Speaker manufacturers ? To my simplistic way of thinking, there shouldnt be a huge chasm between the ability to build a good preamplifier and the ability to build a dedicated headphone amp - always happy to hear otherwise from Ray or someone who knows that of which they speak.

Speaker gear manufacturers.

But for the longest time, they have ignored our segment of audio...and no there isn't a huge chasm, but for some reason they preferred to not even try. Don't get me wrong, I am very happy with "our" gear manufacturers like Ray Samuels, or Woo Audio, just nice to have others offer more selection.

One has to ask if this, and the sudden rush to build digital transports, is a sign of their realisation that they cant rely on a few middle-aged men with pipes, slippers and hefty check books. I still look at gear from people like Gryphon and think 'Nah - they are as wedded to 1998 as they were 3 years ago !', but we have to think back to how long many it took some of these companies to embrace the CD as a viable alternative to vinyl. That said, I'd be very surprised if someone is sitting at a drawing board at Meridian with the specs for a 30K signature headphone amp - always happy to hear otherwise.

I was at the CEDIA show in Indianapolis and stopped by the Bryston booth. I didn't know anything about this new product but saw a pair of chromed out 325is 'phones with 4-pin XLR hooked up to a piece of Bryston gear. The photo right above this post by Hardertaskthinking is what I saw yesterday at CEDIA. It was still not a production unit and the guy I talked to said a production unit probably wouldn't be ready by RMAF. The texture of the aluminum front plate wasn't up to production standards and the chassis had an eggshell finish instead of the more matte finish I'm used to on Bryston gear.

He indicated it would be in the ballpark of $2K. Disclaimer - the guy I was talking to, while highly intelligent, didn't seem to be an expert on this new piece of gear. This was CEDIA after all - surround-sound processors and amplifiers were the main course.

It was stacked on top of the Bryston cd-player and was the exact same form factor. Without having any idea how it sounds, the idea of having a BCD-1/BDA-1/BHP-1 stack makes me drool a little bit on my shirt...

"[...] Headphones have been around for a long time, but they've been usually peripheral to the interests of audiophiles. This has been changing, and Bryston has a new product to meet this challenge. The BPHA-1 ($1295) is a headphone amplifier that is said to work well with the new headphones that are difficult to drive. Bryston's James Tanner is holding up a prototype of the BPHA-1."